Aaron Fraser, seen here as a baby, helped convict his dad Michael Haim, left, over the 1993 death of his mother Bonnie Haim, right. Picture: Supplied

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Son gets dad jailed in 20-year-old cold case

by Fox News, staff writers

23rd May 2019 9:42 AM

A Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison for his wife's cold-case murder - a crime their son witnessed when he was only three years old and helped crack as an adult.

"Daddy shot Mummy," the boy told a child welfare worker in 1993 after the death of his 23-year-old mother Bonnie Haim in Jacksonville, according to an arrest affidavit.

Aaron with his dad Michael Haim after the murder of his mother, Bonnie Haim. Picture: Supplied

However, no one, including his mum's family believed him.

"The credibility of a child is something that you have to judge in perspective," Robert Pasciuto, Bonnie's father said in an 2010 episode of the true crime television series Unsolved Mysteries. "He's said a couple of things that we know were not true. "Mom's car is in the lake." We know her car wasn't there. No one has asked Aaron why did you say mom's car is at the bottom of the lake."

Michael Haim. Picture: Supplied

Aaron Fraser. Picture: Supplied

In 2014, just over two decades after Bonnie Haim was killed, a 24-year-old Aaron Fraser was awarded his childhood home in a wrongful-death lawsuit against his father.

A water leak led him to dig up the backyard searching for the source, and, under a concrete slab, he found his mum's badly decomposed remains.

Police sift through soil to find the remains of Bonnie Haim. Picture: Supplied

"It looked like a coconut shell. I had it in my hand. We looked back in the hole and seen teeth," Mr Fraser told police. "At that point in time, you could actually see the top of the eye socket. And it was like this part of the head, the top half of the head. I set it back in the hole."

DNA tests confirmed the remains were those of Bonnie Haim and a medical examiner concluded she died from a homicide "by unspecified means," according to the arrest affidavit.

Aaron Fraser helped convict his dad Michael Haim over the 1993 death of his mother Bonnie Haim. Picture: Supplied

A spent shell casing found where Bonnie Haim was buried was the same type of calibre as a rifle that Haim owned, the affidavit said.

At his trial, Haim testified in his own defence, telling the jury that he loved his wife and that he would never hurt her.

Bonnie Haim with baby, Aaron. Picture: Supplied

Michael Haim, 52, was convicted last month of second-degree murder.

The gruesome discovery led to the arrest of Haim, who was found guilty of the murder in April.

His sentence was meted out in Duval County Court.

"For 26 years, we wanted justice. And now we have it," Bonnie Haim's sister, Liz Peak said after the sentencing, according to WJXT-TV. "We got justice. But we don't have Bonnie."

Bonnie Haim. Picture: Supplied

Mr Fraser, who was adopted after the murder, stood behind his aunt as she delivered her remarks.

"I always knew my mum was buried, I just didn't know where," Mr Fraser said last week at a pre-sentencing hearing, according to FOX30 Jacksonville

This article originally appeared in Fox News and is republished here with permission